The Fight Over Tesla

July 22, 2013

A Tesla car in Frankfurt, Germany. (AP)

Electric cars are here. Ford, Nissan, and Honda are just some of the companies that are making All-electric cars. And as batteries improve and electric charging stations pop up across the country, electric car companies are hoping to revolutionize the auto industry.

Then there’s the Tesla Motor company of California, which wants not only to revolutionize WHAT we drive — but how we buy it. Tesla makes the Model S, a luxury all-electric car that sells for about 100-thousand dollars. And the company wants to bypass traditional dealerships and sell directly to you from its own show-rooms — in the same way that Apple sells its Macs and I-pads from its own Apple Stores.

Tesla has a store in the Natick Mall, but here’s the problem: it’s against the law to sell directly to the public. In all 50 states, car makers are prohibited from operating their own dealerships. But Tesla wants to change that — and here in Massachusetts, the auto-dealers are pushing back.

Guests

Galen Moore, Web Editor at the Boston Business Journal. You can read his articles on Tesla here.

Scott Dube, president of the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealership Association.

More

Bloomberg “If there’s a secret to Tesla’s success, it’s been to outsource as little as possible. The company has insisted on doing just about everything it can in-house, which has helped it develop intellectual property and control costs. Tesla built the battery pack replacement feature into the Model S, for example, and then designed the robots that will do the work.”